“Our alternative has at heart your freedom, wealth and free enterprise, while the opposition wants to raise taxes and make Albania a country that works for its government,” he said.

After two decades in politics, divided between the president’s and premier’s offices, Berisha is already Albania’s longest-serving leader since the collapse of the Communist regime.

The rally was also greeted by the mayor of Tirana, Lulzim Basha, who lashed out against opposition leader Edi Rama, branding him an enemy of Albania.

“What can be said of someone that blocks his country’s progress?” Basha asked, referring to Rama. “This man cannot be a friend of Tirana or a friend of Albania,” he said.

The parliamentary elections are seen as litmus test for Tirana’s political elite to advance the country’s battered EU integration goals.

Albania has a long history of contested polls that do not meet international standards. The last general elections in 2009 sparked a political crisis between the ruling Democrats and opposition Socialists which is still reverberating.

Talk about it!

Related Headlines:

In closing arguments at Ratko Mladic’s trial, lawyers for the former Bosnian Serb military commander said he never ordered the Srebrenica mass killings and the case against him was systematically biased.